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Sunday, November 20, 2016

Important read. I think that we should all join Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and reach out to our leadership and call for an "a full-fledged
congressional investigation that holds public hearings and releases its
findings to the citizenry."

In his recent book, The Plot to Hack America[6],
national security expert Malcolm Nance wrote, "Russia has perfected
political warfare by using cyber assets to personally attack and
neutralize political opponents…At some point Russia apparently decided
to apply these tactics against the United States and so American
democracy itself was hacked."

Despite all the news being generated by the
change of power underway in Washington, there is one story this week
that deserves top priority: Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election. On Tuesday, the director of the National Security
Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release
of hacked information during the campaign, and he said[1],
"This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a
specific effect." He added, "This was not something that was done
casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a
target that was selected purely arbitrarily."

This was a stunning statement that has echoed other remarks from
senior US officials. He was saying that Russia directly intervened in
the US election to obtain a desired end: presumably to undermine
confidence in US elections or to elect Donald Trump—or both. Rogers was
clearly accusing Vladimir Putin of meddling with American democracy.
This is news worthy of bold and large front-page headlines—and
investigation. Presumably intelligence and law enforcement agencies are
robustly probing the hacking of political targets attributed to Russia.
But there is another inquiry that is necessary: a full-fledged
congressional investigation that holds public hearings and releases its
findings to the citizenry.

If the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies are digging into the
Russian effort to affect US politics, there is no guarantee that what
they uncover will be shared with the public. Intelligence investigations
often remain secret for the obvious reasons: they involve classified
information. And law enforcement investigations—which focus on whether
crimes have been committed—are supposed to remain secret until they
produce indictments. (And then only information pertinent to the
prosecution of a case is released, though the feds might have collected
much more.) The investigative activities of these agencies are not
designed for public enlightenment or assurance. That's the job of
Congress.

When traumatic events and scandals that threaten the nation or its
government have occurred—Pearl Harbor, Watergate, the Iran-contra
affair, 9/11—Congress has conducted investigations and held hearings.
The goal has been to unearth what went wrong and to allow the government
and the public to evaluate their leaders and consider safeguards to
prevent future calamities and misconduct. That is what is required now.
If a foreign government has mucked about and undercut a presidential
election, how can Americans be secure about the foundation of the nation
and trust their own government? They need to know specifically what
intervention occurred, what was investigated (and whether those
investigations were conducted well), and what steps are being taken to
prevent further intrusions.

There already is much smoke in the public realm: the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, and John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Also, Russian hackers reportedly targeted[2] state election systems in Arizona and Illinois. Coincidentally or not, the Russian deputy foreign minister said[3] after
the election that Russian government officials had conferred with
members of Trump's campaign squad. (A former senior counterintelligence
officer for a Western service sent[4]
memos to the FBI claiming that he had found evidence of a Russian
intelligence operation to coopt and cultivate Trump.) And the DNC found evidence[5] suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged—but there was no indication of who was the culprit. In his recent book, The Plot to Hack America[6],
national security expert Malcolm Nance wrote, "Russia has perfected
political warfare by using cyber assets to personally attack and
neutralize political opponents…At some point Russia apparently decided
to apply these tactics against the United States and so American
democracy itself was hacked."

Several House Democrats, led by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, have urged[7] the FBI to investigate links between Trump's team and Russia, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has done the same[8].
According to various news reports, Russia-related probes have been
started by the FBI targeting Americans associated with the Trump
campaign. One reportedly was focused on Carter Page[9], a businessman whom the Trump campaign identified as a Trump adviser, and another was focused on Paul Manafort[10],
who served for a time as Trump's campaign manager. (Page and Manafort
have denied any wrongdoing; Manafort said no investigation was
happening.)

Yet there is a huge difference between an FBI inquiry that proceeds
behind the scenes (and that may or may not yield public information) and
a full-blown congressional inquiry that includes open hearings and ends
with a public report. So far, the only Capitol Hill legislator who has
publicly called for such an endeavor is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). On
Tuesday, Graham, who was harshly critical of Trump during the campaign,
proposed[11]
that Congress hold hearings on "Russia's misadventures throughout the
world," including the DNC hack. "Were they involved in cyberattacks that
had a political component to it in our elections?" Graham said. He
pushed Congress to find out.

The possibility that a foreign government covertly interfered with US
elections to achieve a particular outcome is staggering and raises the
most profound concerns about governance within the United States. An
investigation into this matter should not be relegated to the secret
corners of the FBI or the CIA. The public has the right to know if Putin
or anyone else corrupted the political mechanisms of the nation. There
already is reason to be suspicious. Without a thorough examination,
there will be more cause to question American democracy.